I spent most of the last week interviewing for our Online Editor’s job (more on that soon folks). A reasonable part of the interview process is the effective management of people’s expectations with regard to the ‘glamour’ of the job. In fact, I’d even got a bit of patter I could do on autopilot memorised. It went “You know – for every fantastic, 60 year old whisky that you’ll get to taste, there are another 100 less exciting ones, and probably 50 vodkas too”.

The buzz around Highland Park’s latest whisky, Thor, has been sensational. For all intents and purposes it sounds to be a fantastic whisky – a 16 year old, cask-strength Highland Park packaged in a handsome Viking long ship-inspired case. This morning, however, it all became a lot more mysterious…

We received a little box with a bow on top (see below): (nice to have a bow) More...

Well, it’s been an interesting week of nervously checking the comments to make sure none of them were *too* near the mark, but we’ve made it, and no one’s lodged any formal complaints. By all accounts it was a rip-roaring success. Huzzah.

I think Christian Bale’s pretty face may have had something to do with the great reponse, but regardless there were some very witty suggestions, and so we’ve picked not only three winners (we’ve been feeling extra beneficent recently) – but 5, More...

In our last caption contest, I posted a doctored still from the movie Scarface. I was pushing my luck a little, particularly as it involved editing out a machine gun and replacing it with a bottle of Bathtub Gin and a Martini. Ben let me get away with it.

This time, I think I may be in for a telling off, but it’ll be funny while it lasts, and delicious for all as the best three caption suggestions will each win a 3cl sample of the staggeringly good Lagavulin Feis Ile 2011, a whisky that we just loved when we first tried it on Islay last year (in a little cottage in a powercut in the middle of a ferocious storm no less!). More...

We’re going to introduce you to our latest product, but you’ll probably wish we hadn’t. You’ll wish we never even made it. You’ll wish I tried my best to detain Ben with duct tape and string when he first told me how he was making this vodka, rather than just saying “I’m not so sure that’s a good idea…”

This morning I mentioned to Ben it was high time we posted something on the blog for this week, his suggestion:

“Something about whisky. We don’t do enough of that.”

To be fair, he has a point. We’ve been so caught up in the recent excitement of Christmas, making and launching new stuff, and my imminent emigration, that we’ve neglected that one little thing we’re here to write about first: Whisky!

Note how careful I was with the punctuation there. It’s not that our online editor is wanted, but rather that we want an online editor.

If Mike - our current online editor- was wanted, it might at least go some way towards explaining his decision to move from the sunny, safe, really rather delightful climes of Royal Tunbridge Wells, to Perth. Nope, not that Perth (the sensible Perth, the Perth that’s within just a few miles of a load of great distilleries), the other Perth. The one in Australia. More...

At this point last year, I was hobbling around the office on a crutch (that’s not a misprint - the mean, mean Osteopath at the hospital would only give me one) following what can only be described as the least impressive injury in the history of man.

Sit back Children, and I shall tell you a tale of Christmas Past, Present and Future(1):

Last Tuesday evening, I was invited to the salubrious surroundings of the Four Seasons hotel on Park Lane, to sample the re-invention of a classic Dalmore Dram. This whisky provoked more controversy through its ousting and subsequent reinvention a couple of years ago than perhaps any other spirit, save perhaps that which we do not mention: